Releasing the Lincoln’s parking brake, Ed gripped the steering wheel in one hand and the door frame in the other, and started to push. At first, the car wouldn’t move at all. He grunted, and pushed again, and it swayed forward about a half-inch. Behind him, Shearson Jones said, with mock concern, ‘You don’t want me to get out again, do you? Would that be of any help?’

Ed gasped, ‘You stay – where you – are. I need – the ballast—’

There was another loud shot from the house, and a bullet pinged off the Lincoln’s rear bumper. Ed shouted to Della, ‘They’re trying to hit the tyres!’

‘That’s another fallacy,’ said Della. ‘You can’t burst a tyre with a bullet. They’re aiming for the gas tank, more likely.’

‘Whatever,’ panted Ed, and heaved at the Lincoln again. Gradually, with a slow gravelly crunching sound, the limousine began to creep forward. At first it wasn’t rolling at any speed at all, and Ed was worried that it would come to a stop as soon as it came to a gentle rise in the driveway. But he kept on heaving at it, and it picked up more and more momentum, until Della had to run along beside it.

There was a crackling fusillade of pistol-shots from the house. One of them ricocheted off the Lincoln’s trunk, with a noise like a complaining seagull. Another struck the gravel close to Ed’s feet.

‘Peter Kaiser’s shooting as well,’ said Della. She stepped up on to the sill of the Lincoln’s open passenger door, rested the pump-gun across the roof, sighted it, and fired one loud booming shot towards the doorway of the house. Shearson, inside the car, grimaced and said, ‘Jesus.’

‘All right,’ said Ed, ‘let’s get the hell out of here.’

The large black Continental bounced silently along the sloping driveway. It was eerie, travelling without an engine. There was no sound but the crunching of the tyres on the ground, the squeaking of the suspension, and Shearson’s thick panting in the back seat.

‘There’s the guest cottage,’ said Della, pointing to a small white-washed house set back amongst the silhouette of the trees. It was almost three o’clock in the morning now, and the sky had faded a little, to a pale shade of oyster, but the ground was still thick with the shadows of the night.

Ed steered the Lincoln around the curve which took the driveway to the main gates. Then he applied the brake, and opened his door.

‘Give me two minutes,’ he said. ‘If Shearson tries anything, shoot him. Anywhere you like.’

‘I hope you realise that the gates are locked, and that you don’t have a key to them, either,’ smiled Shearson, fatly.